


The Shirt Off Her Back

by fictorium



Category: Holby City
Genre: 5 Times, Blood, F/F, Femslash, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Stabbing, That stupid blouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 04:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8607772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: 5 Berena interludes all based on that one damn blouse that Serena totally did not buy specially. Of course.





	

“Did you really buy a new shirt just for me?”

Bernie, in the doorway, with a soft smile that might as well be a gun. Serena sighs. It’s only just too early for a glass of shiraz.

“This, Ms Wolfe, is a blouse. One of many I’ve purchased this year, because I find myself in need of clothes to wear to work, changed frequently enough that the nurses don’t gossip. Please don’t give it any significance it shouldn’t have, hmm?”

“Well if you had - and I completely understand that you didn’t,” Bernie holds her hands up against Serena’s next words of protest. “It would have been the best welcome back gift possible. It looks really good on you. Ms Campbell.”

She’s gone in the time it takes Serena to close her eyes and bite back a reaction to the unexpected compliment.

 

* * *

 

“Here,” Serena tosses the blouse from its dry cleaning hanger across the locker room. “You shouldn’t go home in scrubs, even clean ones. That’s how bad habits start.”

“Thanks,” Bernie shakes her head no all the same. She makes no move to pick the blouse up from where it’s landed on the bench. Serena sees that not only are the current scrubs getting cardboard-stiff with drying blood, but Bernie hasn’t even managed to get her hands and arms cleaned up yet.

This will not do.

“Get a shift on, Major,” Serena barks at her, and it’s enough to permeate Bernie’s post-loss fugue. “Hit the showers now, or I’ll drag you in there myself.”

And God, it looks like Bernie wants to obey the command. Serena recognises the symptoms a moment later and she’s on her way round the bench, ushering Bernie with soft sounds and gentle touches that are medically appropriate and not at all unprofessional.

There’s one shower in the bank of five that runs neither scalding nor freezing, and Serena guides Bernie under it, having jabbed the thing on with her elbow.

“Wait here.” Bernie closes her eyes against the spray and Serena steps back long enough to strip back to her camisole, trousers and bare feet, shoving the rest in her locker and yanking the salon shampoo she wasted money on from in back.

Somewhere between lathering Bernie’s hair and rinsing it, Serena sees Bernie come back to herself a bit. Embarrassed in sodden scrubs, Bernie accepts the bar of soap with a wry grin, and Serena excuses herself to wait in the dry confines of the locker banks.

“Thanks,” Bernie announces long minutes later, wet feet slapping against the tile. “I’ve got... I don’t need the shirt, but thanks.”

“All in a day’s work,” Serena insists, putting herself back together in record time, all the better not to turn around and see Bernie in nothing but a towel. That ship has sailed, Serena tells herself. It’s getting harder by the day to believe.

 

* * *

 

“Tea,” Bernie whispers, leaning over Serena in her own bed, placing the mug on the bedside table.

“Mmm,” Serena burrows back into the pillow, shy about Bernie’s nearness. Then Serena cracks one eye just enough to take in the view. “What are you wearing?”

“Well it’s long and flowy enough,” Bernie defends herself, gesturing to Serena’s striped blouse that’s buttoned up all wrong and revealing bare, gorgeous legs. “And I couldn’t find a bloody dressing gown. Would you rather I just flashed Jason?”

“I think seeing you in the kitchen in nothing but my blouse would rather have given the game away.”

“Would that be so bad?” Bernie asks. “Only, I’m not much for hiding things. Not anymore. I know we only just-”

Serena leans in for a kiss, quieting Bernie quite effectively.

“Then we shan’t hide,” Serena decides for them both. “Well, only under these sheets perhaps. At least until I’ve had my tea.”

“Second best idea I’ve heard this week,” Bernie agrees. “Although if you’re so cross I’ve nicked your shirt, there’s really only one thing I can do about that.”

“Oh yes?” Serena props up on her elbows, not shy now. Just naked and ready and utterly intrigued.

“Take it off,” Bernie elaborates, and Serena can’t find a single point to disagree on.

 

* * *

 

It shouldn’t fucking tear so easily. Viyella might be going out of business as fast as BH sodding S but there’s no excuse for seams giving at the first tug of competent hands.

If Serena stays angry at the material giving way, at shoddy workmanship and overpriced clothes, it stops her feeling the very real, very immediate pain of being stabbed. With a blunted scalpel of all the undignified things.

But Bernie’s hands as firm and competent, just as much here on the corridor floor in Keller as they have been in theatre, or countless nights in Serena’s bed. Bernie tears the blouse and makes the compress and as long as she’s touching and talking, Serena feels quite sure this horrid little pain will take itself away and stop bothering her.

That doesn’t explain why Bernie’s crying. Or the encroaching black at the edges of Serena’s vision. Oh for fuck’s sake Serena thinks, wondering when her cream-coloured blouse, with tan and navy stripes across it, became quite so garishly red.

 

* * *

 

She comes to in Intensive Care, denied even the familiarity of her own ward. Serena feels the sandpaper rasp in her throat, relieved that whatever breathing tube she presumably needed is now gone. When she casts around for water, it reveals the sight of Bernie, head bowed at the side of her bed.

“Did...” Serena’s voice is a croak. She blushes, frustrated. It’s enough to get Bernie’s attention at least, her head snapping up like fingers clicked impatiently. She’s clutching a fragment of Serena’s blouse, this part apparently untainted with however many pints of AB neg Serena splashed on the floor. “Is he?”

“Police got him in five minutes flat,” Bernie answers, her eyes red from crying or lack of sleep, voice rough. “Sectioned him. Not sure how that holds up.”

“Well enough,” Serena whispers. “Water?”

Bernie has the dribble in a plastic cup almost as if waiting for her cue.

“You terrified the life out of me,” she confesses, as Serena sips.

“About time I did the terrifying,” Serena teases. “Everything accounted for?”

“All organs present and correct,” Bernie confirms. “Ric did a magnificent job. Even if he did confine me to the waiting area like a civilian.”

“Best place for you,” Serena warns. “I suppose that’s done for any last hope of discretion?”

“I couldn’t have hidden how worried I was if you paid me.” Bernie stands tall, sets the cup aside. “And I won’t now, either.”

“This better not be some deathbed proposal,” Serena groans. “I’m really not in the mood.”

“You’re not on your deathbed,” Bernie corrects. “But I never want to be on the outside looking in again.”

“We’ll talk about it,” Serena promises. “Last of the great romantics, you are.”

“Tired?”

Serena nods. She’s faintly aware of Bernie’s gentle kiss, before slipping back into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
